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Sir Keir Starmer has become prime minister after Labour secured a majority in the general election.

"Change begins now," he told crowds moments after the victory was confirmed.

The theme of change is one he has returned to throughout his time as Labour leader and during the election campaign - he even managed to work it into a conversation about Taylor Swift, naming the popstar's 2008 song Change as his favourite.

As Labour leader, he made it his mission to drag the party back to the centre and make it "electable" again - a project that won him both praise and criticism.

He was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2020 after its worst general election defeat since 1935, replacing Jeremy Corbyn.

He returned to that mission as he reflected on Labour's success: "Election wins don't fall from the AG百家乐在线官网 - they are hard won, and hard fought for.

"This one could only be won by a changed Labour Party."

Sir Keir may have made the party's transformation his project - but who is the man behind that?

Early life

Sir Keir was born in Southwark, south London, on 2 September 1962.

It has been widely reported he is named after Keir Hardie, the founder of the Labour Party and its first leader (1906-1908).

However, a 2021 biography of Sir Keir notes he said in a 2015 interview that he had no evidence for this, as he had never spoken to his parents about it.

With three other siblings, he grew up in a "pebble-dash semi" in Oxted, a small town in Surrey, where his father Rodney was a toolmaker and his mother Josephine worked as a nurse in the NHS.

The Labour leader has described how his mother suffered from Still's disease, a rare type of inflammatory arthritis that meant she was unable to walk, talk or eat.

She died in 2015 - just a few weeks after he was elected as the Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras.

In an interview with Sky News' people and politics correspondent Nick Martin, Tom Baldwin, the author of an unauthorised biography of Sir Keir said there was "so much going on" in the Labour leader's family that did not leave "a lot of room for someone like Keir Starmer to learn to emote, to express themselves".

"There wasn't much room for him to talk about his problems," he said. "It's about him getting on and getting out.

"It's about him feeling the prick of snobbery, that sort of the sting of that with his dad being looked down upon.

"But it's also, I think, a bit about guilt about the fact he left his brother and his sisters behind."

Mr Baldwin described Sir Keir's journey as "kind of an ordinary story" adding: "No stories really ordinary, is it?"

Sir Keir adopted his parents' politics and joined the Labour Party as a teenager.

After leaving Reigate Grammar School - where contemporaries included Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) and Andrew Cooper, who later became a Tory peer and director of strategy to Lord David Cameron - he studied law at Leeds University.

He was the first member of his family to go to university, and also gained a postgraduate degree at Oxford.

Sir Keir has described his relationship with his father, who died three years later in 2018, as "distant" and has said he regrets not having a closer bond with him.

He has frequently spoken about how his father felt disrespected because of his occupation, something that has driven his desire for a sense of "respect" in society.

In an interview with Sky News' Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge, the Labour leader said he regretted he did not "address" the distant relationship he had with his father before he died.

He said that because his father spent so much time caring for his mother, "the emotional space was more squeezed than it might otherwise have been".

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"That's because he invested it all in my mum, and I probably should have addressed that before he passed.

"And I wish I had - but I didn't."

Legal career

The incoming prime minister has spoken about how he realised that law and justice was a place to effect social change.

After leaving university, Sir Keir emerged as an ideological lawyer on the left.

He helped set up and edit Socialist Alternatives, a radical left-wing journal that has been described as TrotAG百家乐在线官网ite - and which he jokingly has said "only sold about five copies".

In 1987, he began working as a barrister specialising in human rights, before going on to be head of the Crown Prosecution Service and director of public prosecutions (DPP) from 2008 to 2013.

During his high-profile career, he undertook work including the high-profile McLibel case.

Sir Keir provided free legal advice to Helen Steel and David Morris, whom McDonald's sued for libel after they produced a pamphlet that was critical of the company.

Sir Keir also worked with the National Union of Mineworkers to prevent the Conservatives' pit closures and offered free legal advice to protestors demonstrating against Margaret Thatcher's poll tax.

One of the more quirky features of Sir Keir's backstory is the rumour - since denied by author Helen Fielding - that he was the inspiration for the character of Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones books.

While working as a lawyer, he met his wife, Victoria, who works for the NHS and whom he married in 2007.

Together they have two children, who attend Arsenal games with him, where he is a season ticket holder. He regularly plays five-a-side.

'Sometimes you have to be ruthless'

Much has been made about Sir Keir's transition from a more socialist past to his current centrist position.

He has come in for criticism for dropping a number of leadership campaign pledges - including promises to increase income tax, nationalise most public services and scrap tuition fees.

Sir Keir has defended the U-turns, saying the country now finds itself in a "different financial position" because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A key part of changing Labour for Sir Keir has been tackling the antisemitism problem that existed under Mr Corbyn's leadership - something he promised to "tear out by its roots".

But Conservative opponents have also sought to use his time as a senior member of Mr Corbyn's shadow cabinet to question his judgement.

Sir Keir was shadow Brexit secretary for four years and was said to be a key figure in the formulation of the party's second referendum policy that was part of its 2019 manifesto.

The incoming prime minister has defended his time in Mr Corbyn's shadow cabinet by arguing that it was better to stay in and fight than leave, as some of his colleagues did.

The distance he has put between himself and his former colleague have led to charges of dishonesty and disingenuousness - but Sir Keir has regarded it as necessary to prove that he has changed the Labour Party.

"Sometimes you have to be ruthless to be a good leader," he has said.

"I changed the Labour Party. If I'm privileged enough to be given the opportunity, I'll change the country too."

'He wasn't all jazz hands and glitter'

In an interview with Sky News' people and politics correspondent Nick Martin, Jenny Chapman, the former MP for Darlington who served as Sir Keir's political secretary between 2020 and 2021, said she first got to know Sir Keir through his wife, Victoria, before moving on to the shadow Brexit team.

Ms Chapman said she identified Sir Keir as "serious person" who was "fiercely intelligent" and "wanted to do a good job".

She said that while he did not have "much of a feel at first for the House of Commons chamber" and did not know many people in parliament, "he had something at his core which was about wanting to use his ability to good effect".

"He wasn't all jazz hands and glitter, and 'I'm going to be the mega star here'," she said.

"You don't get to do what he's done without being hungry to learn and to want to know how to improve. And I saw that from day one."

'He had very little ego'

Patrick Stevens is the former head of international at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which Sir Keir led from 2008 to 2013.

Mr Stevens drew comparisons with Sir Keir's leadership of the CPS to how he has guided the Labour Party as leader.

"He surrounded himself with a team of good people," Mr Stevens explained. "He trusted them, he empowered them, he delighted in their success.

"He had very little ego on this, but he was always there to lead.

"I think there's comparisons between how he approached that, how he approached changing the Labour Party and how he will approach being prime minister."

He added: "I think the Labour Party is a microcosm of society because it has people from all walks of life with all different views - you've got to reach out to people that aren't natural Labour people to join you."

Addressing his concerns for Sir Keir if he takes on the job as prime minister, Mr Stevens said: "My biggest fears are not about his ability to do the job. I've got every confidence in that.

"But for him as an individual, the toll of of being prime minister and really making a change in one of the most difficult times we faced for a long time, both domestically and internationally, it's got to take a huge toll on anybody."

'Work hard, play hard'

Tom Baldwin, a former senior adviser to the Labour Party who initially intended to ghost write an autobiography of Sir Keir before deciding on an unauthorised biography instead, said the process of writing about the incoming prime minister gave him "quite a good clue to who he is - because it became very clear to me very quickly he didn't want an autobiography".

"He didn't want 350 pages of him talking about how great he is, which sort of sets him apart from quite a lot of politicians," he said.

"Most politicians I know like nothing more than talking about how great they are," he continued. "But he felt embarrassed about it. And so we killed the autobiography."

Mr Baldwin said that although the dominant impression of Sir Keir among the public seemed to be that he was "flat" and "dull", he believed him to be someone with a "big inner confidence" who feels that "when he works hard, he overcomes".

He added: "There are lots of characteristics about him which stand out - there's a relentlessness; there's a ruthlessness sometimes.

"But all his friends say it's actually this work hard, play hard motif."

Another critique that is levelled at Sir Keir is that his relative short experience inside the Labour Party means he sometimes does not understand its inner workings and complexities.

But Mr Baldwin believes this quality to be an asset rather than a burden.

"He's able to move very fast and very ruthlessly towards various ends without being burdened by the baggage or friendship or ideology or faction.

"He's got to take this decision as leader of the Labour Party and he'll do it without any compunction - and that's totally different to the bloke."